20 thoughts on “Number One Pick on polarization”

1. A new academic article about growth in partisan polarization in Congress finds that growth in top-down party discipline is the main cause. See Nathan Canen, Chad Kendall, and Francesco Trebbi, “Political Parties as Drivers of U.S. Polarization: 1927-2018” (CEPR & NBER, January 2021).

   Link:
   https://ftrebbi.com/research/ckt2.pdf

   “Abstract
   The current polarization of elites in the U.S., particularly in Congress, is frequently ascribed to the emergence of cohorts of ideologically extreme legislators replacing moderate ones. Politicians, however, do not operate as isolated agents, driven solely by their preferences. They act within organized parties, whose leaders exert control over the rank-and-file, directing support for and against policies. This paper shows that the omission of party discipline as a driver of political polarization is consequential for our understanding of this phenomenon. We present a multi-dimensional voting model and identification strategy designed to decouple the ideological preferences of lawmakers from the control exerted by their party leadership. Applying this structural framework to the U.S. Congress between 1927- 2018, we find that the influence of leaders over their rank-and-file has been a growing driver of polarization in voting, particularly since the 1970s. In 2018, party discipline accounts for around 65% of the polarization in roll call voting. Our findings qualify the interpretation of – and in two important cases subvert – a number of empirical claims in the literature that measures polarization with models that lack a formal role for parties.”

   • Thanks for the link. I did not find their argument compelling, but the data and charts are fascinating. Furthermore, it’s strong evidence against Rauch.

     These two things can’t both be true:

     1. That is makes sense to have such nice and clear charts of *ideological* polarization according to some very small number of variables per the factor analysis.

     2. That Rauch is correct in calling that ideological polarization ‘incoherent’.

     If you had *partisan* polarization *without* ideological polarization, then *that* would be incoherent. But the paper shows us that the partisan polarization and ideological polarization are of a piece.

     That reduces Rauch’s premise to a banal claim – that the modal ideological positions of party politicians and voters do not line up very well with the contents of a small number of purist and dogmatic political philosophies he names.

     Well, for one thing, when has that not been true of parties? For another, that could be the natural consequence of a party being a kind of marriage of convenience and simply being a coalition of people who, individually, are more ‘coherent’ in their views and preferences to the extent aligned with those named political philosophies, but collectively could not be.

     Party positions have always tended to adapt and adjust as constituencies flip into different coalitions. The permanently-provisional rough agreements including the tacit payoffs to clients in the Big Tent strategies required by the two-party system mean that people in a party can disagree with each other on a variety of matters but still recognize the other party as a common threat which takes priority over internecine squabbles.

     But even if each individual was uniformly ‘incoherent’ in terms of being an equal mix of, say, libertarian positions and non-libertarian conservative positions, so long as you can decompose the difference between those views and those of the other party into a small number of linear variables (as done in all the papers like this), then the polarization is still ‘coherent’, we just don’t have a convenient or historical name for what the coherent ideological difference would be called. Indeed there is a great scramble for this territory in non-progressive political intellectual circles specifically to try to discover the best way to explain the reformulation of that coherent split (Most of them, alas, are flailing pretty miserably, because they are looking in the wrong place and also keep introducing their own long-standing but hopelessly inconsistent preferences into the mix.)

     I won’t get into the whole argument here, but if one is using ‘coherent’ in analogy to mathematical logic – that conclusions should flow from fundamental principles and should be as consistent, complete, and non-contradictory as possible – then for a number of ‘coherent’ systems, there should be an equally ‘coherent’ way to describe the system that is the difference between any two unit vectors of combinations of those systems.

     • Handle,

       You raise a vexed question: What is the glue of ideology?

       • Hi John, could I ask you to please rephrase that question with more detail and explanation of what you’re getting at? I don’t want to try to answer based on a misinterpretation.

         • Handle,

           Sorry to have been cryptic. If we assume that the neither the majority of citizens nor the median vote have time or inclination to work out systematic, coherent policy views, then how might political parties construct ideologies that are systematic, coherent, and attractive to a majority of citizens or the median voter?

         • Thanks John, that clears things up. But boy, it would take a book to address that question which is fundamentally religious in nature, and here we are five levels down in the comments.

           However, one quick way of getting at it is that I think at least two related things are sine qua non.

           First, it must be perceived to provide some kind of guide, a small set of fundamental organizing principles, and comprehensive system and source of authority for adjudicating and settling on reasonably clear and ‘accurate’ answers to most political issues, especially the matter of ‘legitimacy’, but indeed, most big questions of morality and life.

           It’s relatively straightforward to extract that for Progressivism and Libertarianism (at least, before the recent schisms and Crisis of Apostasy) but note that it’s not for ‘Conservatism’ in general but only for its mutually rivalrous sub-groups, which is a big reason why it’s always losing.

           Second and related, the above system has to be ‘stratifiable’ and deployable in a variety of forms or ‘brows’ appropriate to the intellectual level of particular classes, from one simple enough for dullards and young children, to one complex enough to provide plenty of opportunities for the top intellectuals to compete and show off their talents. Stratifiability is what puts a cap on potentially unlimited complexity and enables the emergence and sharing of a common “language of politics”, to use Kling’s terminology.

           Also note that you didn’t add any kind of welfarist or “net beneficial to the cause of human flourishing” constraint, which is a very small portion of the overall space of answers. Communism, for example, could fit the bill in certain times and places, but being generally terrible is not what you’re shooting for. Welfarist considerations require that an answer not tether inflexibly to a principle which deviates from objective reality on a point critical to that understanding of ‘flourishing’.

         • Thanks, Handle, for your full, helpful reply!

           Milton Friedman sketches a simple theory by George Stigler, “Director’s Law” (after Aaron Director). See the video at the link below, at cue time 00:30:54.

           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KCHl-GO01o

           Alas, Director’s Law seems hard to square with sharp ideological polarization.

         • @John Alcorn:

           Director’s theory – which is just an update to that old insight about potential political coalitions “High and Low against the Middle” – depends on the assumption that the major relevant and salient political distinction in a society is class / wealth. That’s how many people on all sides – including Marxists obviously – thought about things when nations were much more homogeneous, religious differences had lost their importance, and the integration of women into politics and the economy was just starting to have an impact. To the extent that there were other important distinctions between sub-populations, it was thought to be obvious that any nation would work hard to de-emphasize them and encourage integration and assimilation into a greater, common solidarity.

           Well, those assumptions are no longer close to true, and that shifts the space for successful political strategies in a democracy, where accentuating all those other differences and maintaining a perpetually heightened sense of resentful grievance and bitter acrimony is extremely effective, albeit incompatible with a nice future.

2. So does this mean that Scott Alexander might slip from his billing as “Number One Pick”? (I come not to bury Scott Alexander, but to pick him)

3. I have not been shy about expressing my disappointment with the intellectual quality and the overall treatment of the subject of ‘polarization’ by the authors who tend to get kudos on this blog such as Rauch, Levin, and Haidt, and I remember laying some of my objections out at the time of that essay and the AEI event and CATO articles.

   I won’t rehash that all here (you’re welcome) except to say that that whenever I see a lot of smart people seem to make bad arguments in the name of the same general idea, I start to strongly suspect that the reason is that the idea itself is a shiny apple appealing on the surface but rotten at the core. It’s like trying to defend a client who is very popular but against whom the evidence of guilt is just overwhelming. The best lawyer in the world isn’t going to make a good case, and while he may win, it won’t be because of the strength of the arguments. You can’t have a worthy trial if everybody agrees that the popular guy should win, and only argues about which arguments make the best case for it.

   One point I’ll make here is that polarization makes perfect sense when the stakes of a small number of political contests are enormous. That could be because the winner takes all and has and will use the power of the office to effectively rule by edict and immediately and unilaterally completely reverse course on literally hundreds of policies which affect the core personal interests of million of people. That this is now a normalized feature of our political system is bad right now and a terrible sign for our future.

   • I’d like to see more working toward a “micro” approach and less of a “macro” approach to polarization.

     At a micro level, individual politicians chose to compromise or fight. When we see increased “polarization” the incentives for these individuals must be pushing them to fight.

     What incentives are changing?

     The “political party discipline” question just sidesteps this, but we could re-state the question to say “Why factors cause political leaders to exert less control over members?” Same incentives at play, just a level up the food chain.

     • Let’s try an example.

       Was Obamacare bad partisanship or good partisanship?

       It basically passed on a straight line party vote, so it was certainly partisan. Should Democrats have done that or not?

       I mean as legislation it’s really wanting. I don’t know how it polls presently but it basically cost a bunch of money and fixed nothing. I’ve spent enough time working on this thing to call it a disappointment.

       The partisans say it wasn’t partisan enough, that’s why it failed. They intend to test that over the next four years, presumably in a similar party line vote. In their view, Republicans are obstructionists either because they are evil, corrupt, or stupid, not because they have legitimate issues with the bill worth compromising on.

       The alternative is that it just wasn’t that good a bill and that is why was opposed by every member of the other party.

       I won’t take a side here I’m just saying this is what partisanship means. Either compromising (and possibly not getting what you want) or pushing it through.

       When we talk about partisanship in a vague way, everyone is against it. But when we talk about “is this bill important enough to pass even if the other side stringently opposes it”, everyone is for it. Biden could probably end “partisanship” by declaring he will veto every single bill until congress can come up with something 2/3rds of the country wants.

       Looking at the 1990s, NAFTA passed with very similar support in both parties. The taxpayer relief act of and balanced budget act of 1997 also had bipartisan support. As did the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.

       The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act passed with 100-0 in the Senate!

       I mean we could pass bipartisan bills on these big issues.

       I also don’t think the primary issue is the Dixiecrats. This all happened in the 1990s, so long after the Dixiecrat switch. And its possible to use definition of Dixiecrat that is way to lose. If it include the descendants of the people that formed West Virginia specifically to fight the planters, its a bit too wide.

       I think a more relevant switch is that Bill Clinton relied heavily on the Scots Irish of Appalachia, hardly a pro-secessionist group, as part of the democratic coalition. They’ve slowly been transformed into the deplorables by the Democratic Party, but I think in a lot of ways they formed a key bipartisan swing vote on a lot of this legislation in the 1990s.

4. One wonders how much of “polarization” can be attributed to “the death of decency.” John Cochrane observes:

   “Both sides of our partisan politics are acting as if this is a life or death battle, the point being to wipe the other side off the face if not of the earth, of our political life. As I have opined, if it is so, we need to change the winner take all rules of our game.”

   https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2021/02/lipson-on-basic-decency.html

   The desire of a substantial majority of people in the USA (60% plus https://news.gallup.com/poll/329639/support-third-political-party-high-point.aspx) would appear related.

   • Traditionally, members and leadership of both parties had a lot more in common with each other than they do now.

     Much common experience and familiarity has been lost, and that makes it easier to to be indecent to each other.

   • There ain’t gonna be no effective “third party”. Not Libertarian, not Green, not any “ideology”.
     Some “personality” could form one, and get votes, but it will mostly mean the party most different wins.
     HR Perot ran in 1992, against NAFTA and that “great big sucking sound – of Mexico stealing American Jobs” (paraphrase). So Bush 43 [R] lost to Clinton.
     George Wallace ran in 1968, also against immigration as well as being a huge ex-Dem racist, so Humphrey [D] lost to Nixon.
     If Trump runs, the Dems win.

     Rauch’s article is maybe 80% excellent, 20% Smug & dishonest. Something true:
     “majorities of highly politically engaged Republicans (62%) and highly politically engaged Democrats (70%) said the other party makes them feel “afraid.”

     Third party voters are positive; aren’t enough positive folks willing to lose.

     However, the first election after 2020 census redistricting will be very interesting.

5. A few questions:

   What is “polarization”? How does one derive a quantitative metric to describe the magnitude of polarization within a population? Why should we believe that comparisons of the values of this metric between populations, or within a single population over time, are meaningful?

   Why is polarization, in and of itself, a problem and why should we be concerned about it? What should be the relationship between our level of concern about polarization and the values of whatever metrics we’ve decided on using to quantify levels of polarization?

   Why are decreased levels of polarization an outcome that we should desire?

   • You’re asking the right questions, and if you keep asking more like those you’ll see that a lot of the discussion doesn’t make good sense. The problem with most of these authors is that they are lumping together a lot of different trends and ideas and calling the whole phenomenon by one name with a negative valence. But doing so obscures more than it reveals, and also, even more unfortunately, is often abused to make precisely the kind of unbalanced partisan attack some of them decry, only in a slightly more subtle way with a transcendent, above-the-fray pose.

     Personally I found that I could be nothing other than amused when once reading a variant on this theme in the form of a pair of lawyers whose views on important, core questions of law are polar opposites (see what I did there) which they hold with complete firmness without compromise and for which they advocate in an (admirably) adversarial manner with vigor and every fiber of their being, but who are somehow oblivious to their own literal manifestation of the ‘polarization’ that is someone only out there, in other people, and which they both agree is a bad problem.

     The authors would be better off using ordinary English words to describe the observations of cultural change that they really don’t like and think will produce bad consequences. They could say it’s unfortunate that so many people feel free to be so much more nasty and threatening to their opponents – eager to see them come to harm, and often able to make it happen. They could decry the general rise in acrimony and distrust, bitterness and resentment, sadism and schadenfreude. They could say that increasing anger and disengagement from people with different political opinions make the process of negotiated settlement and deliberated compromise essential to the liberal political order impossible.

     And I agree, that really is common ground, all that stuff is true and bad and unfortunate.

     But like Operation Market Garden, they want to take a bridge too far. Several bridges too far, actually. They then want to make a tacit leap into a conclusion that all that is so bad that no underlying disagreements could possibly be important enough to justify that kind of antagonism, and that they are all petty and important in comparison. Well, you do not actually ever see them make that case. Either antagonism is never justified, and we would see that the rest of their advocacy is inconsistent with that kind of pacifist quietism. Or it is justified at some point, but then, where, and why not here?

     There are a lot of unargued assumptions about “bipartisan compromise” being something that must be possible and the lack of which can only be explained by irrationally stubborn intransigence, but politics also involves zero sum problems and irreconcilable differences where there is no zone of possible agreement. Without a state to tamp it down, there might be violence, but with violence suppressed, there is still severe antipathy. There is also next to no discussion of what seems fairly obvious, that once all the possible compromises have been negotiated or steamroller triumphs achieved, there will naturally emerge a no man’s land in a bifurcated distribution of distinct sets of clients.

     Fundamentally all of this boils down to a big attempt at unjustified evasion of the hard problems and questions of our politics in favor of a kind of desire for a norm of commitment to good sportsmanship in matters of political sport. One wants to be able to have an opinion without being the hunted enemy of those with an opposing opinion. But when the stakes become enormous, sport becomes war, and sportsmanship goes out the window.

6. Polarization is real, it’s negative, and in the USA it’s main foundation is in colleges.

   Colleges have been discriminating against Republicans, Christians, Market Capitalists, and Individualists at least since post WWII and Ike (1952, and probably before.

   Any article about “polarization” in America that doesn’t address college discrimination against Reps is unlikely to be mostly true.

   • After WW II, and Adlai Stevenson, the elite intellectuals have been steady in progressing an anti-Americanism based on their intellectual superiority, which they wrongly conclude gives them moral superiority.
     Someone (election 1952 vs Ike [R] ) “Every thinking person in America will be voting for you.”
     Stevenson replied, “I’m afraid that won’t do—I need a majority.”

     Both of articles avoid discussing the elitist intellectual superiority assumptions of the Big Gov’t politicians, and how often, in practice, they have failed. (It should be noted there have also been successes, like getting to the Moon in 1969)

     Colleges have been discriminating against Republicans, Christians, Market Capitalists, and Individualists at least since then, and probably before.

     The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is being trotted out by flabby intellectuals in order smear Republicans with the pre-CRA Jim Crow laws against Blacks, virtually always without noting that EVERY Jim Crow Law was passed by Democrat Party controlled state lawmakers. The Democrats used to think: “Because Blacks are inferior, it’s OK to treat them worse.”
     Today, with AA, the IMPLICIT thinking is:
     “Because Blacks are inferior, we need to treat them special, more like those with Down’s Syndrome”.

     However, the cognitive dissonance is because none can say “Blacks are inferior”, nor even think it. So, instead it’s “Because of Slavery”, or “Because of Systemic Racism”. Elite Big Brain doublethink.

     Still, racism is NOT the main cause of polarization. There are no marches explicitly in favor of going back to segregation and giving up on the MLK ideal of “treating each person according to their character”.

     In 1972, Roe v Wade was decided by a divided 5-4 US Supreme Court decision, with various opinions. This was a terrible, anti-Constitutional decision. The 10th Amendment is pretty clear:
     The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

     The right decision was to make states decide, knowing that some states had already legalized it, but also knowing that many states might not, and that having state differences would cause some coordination issues, as well as “abortion tourism”. [This is a current issue in Poland where most abortions are illegal, and pro-abortionist claim thousands go abroad for legal abortions. Was an issue in Ireland, which recently legalized abortion.]

     Elite Big Brainers decided on the faux Roe Amendment, partly because Democrats had, in many racist Southern states, been putting in racist laws against Blacks explicitly treating them differently.

     Bad racism is that – laws and policies which treat Blacks differently than Whites.
     Racist Democrat controlled states were doing that, against the 14th Amendment, so the Federal gov’t helped stop that. Leading to the CRA (’64) and the “third party” candidacy of racist George Wallace (ex-Dem) in 1968, who got Electoral College votes from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi – and 46 electoral votes.

     Wallace running made Dem Humphrey lose to Nixon in 1968.

7. Rauch’s article of true general platitudes (50%) plus flabby no-example Trump-hate (20%) leaves about 30% worth thinking about.

   Both Dems and Reps are “afraid” of the other side winning.
   Yet objectively, with 4 years of Trump – how many Americans lost their jobs or were canceled for speaking out publicly against Trump or against Republicans or Christians or capitalists or heterosexuals or Whites? I challenge anybody to name 10. (It might be there were more than I know of).

   How many lost jobs or were cancelled for speaking out publicy against Obama or abortion or socialism or homosexuality or Blacks/ BLM? There are dozens, probably hundreds – and all of us know it is “politically incorrect” to speak certain truths, with the speaking of those anti-Dem truths being a threat to jobs.

   Reps have objective reasons for their fear. Dems do not – tho they have far more loud Dem media megaphones claiming that they should be afraid of “Trump – Hitler”.

   It’s the Democratic Socialists who act like Nazis – like National Socialist Worker Party haters of other citizens. Both are against individual rights.

   The biggest Big Lie by US & Western elites after the war was the idea that National Socialists were “the Right”, when actually they were the Left – socialists. Socialists willing to give up individual rights for society, for “social good” , as they define it. In ever changing definitions, depending on the current reality.

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